Saturday, 25 October 2014

The Boxtrolls is an indie animated film based on a novel by Alan Snow called Here Be Monsters! Directed by Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi, The Boxtrolls is about a boy (Eggs) who grows up underground with boxtrolls and thinks himself one of them until he meets a girl during an above-ground excursion. Meanwhile, an exterminator named Snatcher wants to kill off every boxtroll in the city so the mayor will give him a white hat and let him eat cheese with the big boys. That all won’t make much sense, but this an animated film after all.

There are some excellent actors lending their voices to The Boxtrolls, including Ben Kingsley, Jared Harris (who sounds a lot like his father, Richard, when you don’t have him there in person) and Nick Frost. The animation is good, the screenplay is clever and funny (though the story could be a lot tighter) and there’s even a good message in there somewhere, except...

(spoiler alert) If you have enough awareness to satirize the way bad guys are redeemed (or not!) at the end of animated films, why oh why would you still kill off the two biggest baddies in the film? Sure, their deaths were an accidental consequence of their own actions and not at the hands of the good guys, and that’s great, but still! It’s the need to kill off the bad guy at the end of many animated films that needs satirizing big time. End of rant.

Thursday, 23 October 2014

This indie drama by Craig Johnson (co-written by Mark
Heyman) is not an easy film to watch. It starts off with Milo (one of the twins
in question, played by Bill Hader) attempting to commit suicide while his twin
sister Maggie (Kristen Wiig), who lives at the other end of the country, contemplates
doing the same. Things don’t get a whole lot better from there, which makes this
a fairly depressing, though by no means hopeless, film to watch.

The twins haven’t seen each other in ten years, but when
Maggie (in New York) gets the message that Milo is in the hospital in Los
Angeles, she immediately flies out to see him. Milo ends up flying back to New
York with Maggie and temporarily moves into Maggie’s house, which Maggie shares
with her ‘perfect’ husband, Lance (Luke Wilson). While there, Milo takes the
opportunity to invite their mother to the house and to reconnect with a key
figure from his teenage years and, well, the story gets darker, as it does when
Maggie can’t control herself at the pool. Maggie and Milo have each other
again, but will that help or hinder a depression that seems to originate in
their childhood?

That’s enough of the plot. The acting of all involved is
fantastic (especially Hader and Wiig). The intelligent story feels very real
and is well-structured and well-told, with lots to think about. The music is
used sparingly and well; the cinematography is great. If The Skeleton Twins had
gone a little deeper, it might have warranted ****, but I’ll stay with a solid
***+. My mug is up.

Saturday, 18 October 2014

Here is a film to make you angry and make you cringe – and
both for two very different reasons.

The documentary is about the American evangelical church’s
influence on Ugandan attitudes and political responses toward homosexuality. Regardless
of what most any person’s attitudes (or theological responses) toward
homosexuality are, one might expect that any decent person would not support a
life sentence or death sentence (funny how those sound like opposites) for
homosexual acts.

This film demonstrates that this is not the case. Caught up
in religious fervour and intoxicated by the possibilities of a country that can
be swayed even more easily than the US by the religious right – evangelical
leaders are shown as inspiring and strongly supporting a most
immoral law (though the death sentence was eventually dropped). I suppose one
shouldn’t be too surprised.

However, another cringe-worthy aspect of the film is the filmmakers’
deception. Having clearly won the trust of a young adult mission team, the
camera crew was welcomed along for the ride and recorded the sincere hopes and
attempts of well-meaning young people. Though they are largely innocent of the
actions of the older leaders, they end up being framed as deluded and bad
people. I felt very sorry for them and the trust that they had had betrayed.
Twice – because their trust has also betrayed by the older religious leaders
whose colonizing distortions of Christianity may have inoculated them against
the actual teachings of Jesus. The film effectively exposes the dark side of
the evangelical movement, but I don't believe in the ends justifying the means
(of deceitful filmmaking).

It’s a good film (probably some people really need to see
it) – but it leaves one feeling defiled in two very different ways. As a
result, I just can’t give it a rating.

Sunday, 12 October 2014

Gone Girl is an old-fashioned (somewhat Hitchcockian) psychological thriller, full of twists and turns and intelligent dialogue that has a lot to say about the world we live in today (especially with regard to the media). I generally enjoy such films and Gone Girl is no exception, but I do have one big complaint.

Without giving anything of consequence away, I’ll tell you that Gone Girl focuses on the trials of Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck), a man who comes home one afternoon to find his wife missing and clear signs of a struggle. He calls the police and into his life comes Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens), who takes over the case. Nick has a twin sister, Margo (Carrie Coon), who supports him throughout the twisted ordeal which follows, though not without worries and suspicions (the police and the media, of course, immediately suspect Nick of foul play).

Woven into the first half of the story are excerpts from a diary written by Nick’s wife Amy (Rosamund Pike), through which we get to see some of the backstory of how Nick and Amy met and what the first years of their marriage were like.

Gone Girl is directed by David Fincher and you can tell from the opening scenes that you are watching the work of a master. The atmosphere, the cinematography and the music blend together in a style perfectly suited to the genre (if the emphasis is on intelligent drama instead of action). It doesn’t hurt if you have the writer of the novel (Gillian Flynn) also writing the screenplay. I predicted a few of the twists (because I can’t stop my brain from trying to do that whenever I watch such films), but there were enough twists I didn’t predict to make this long thriller a very satisfying piece of entertainment.

So what’s the problem? Well, the biggest weakness of the film, for me, is Ben Affleck. I have said it before: I don’t think Affleck is a very good actor. Nothing in Gone Girl changes that opinion. Sure, there were many scenes in which his acting was passable and his performance was wisely understated, but I couldn’t help thinking that the presence of a better lead actor would have made Gone Girl far more emotionally compelling. I just couldn’t identify in any way with Nick Dunne (whether I was supposed to or not).

The three lead female actors (Pike, Coon, Dickens), on the other hand, were terrific and it was their characters who kept me riveted to the screen (I wish Dickens, in particular, had had more air time). Anyway, it’s great to see that top quality films like Gone Girl are also drawing crowds to the cinema. A solid ***+. My mug is up.

Thursday, 2 October 2014

The Drop is one of the most unusual thrillers I have ever seen. Written by novelist Dennis Lehane and directed by Belgian filmmaker Michael R. Roskam (a relative newcomer), The Drop has an unusual style, an unusual atmosphere, an unusual story and an unusual denouement. Unusual is good, of course, at least for me.

Tom Hardy delivers his second Oscar-worthy performance of the year (he’s the Matthew McConaughey of 2014) as Bob Saginowski, a lonely quiet bartender who works for his cousin Marv (James Gandolfini, in his final performance) in a small bar in Brooklyn. Once owned by Marv, the bar is now owned by Chechen gangsters and is used on occasion as one of a large number of ‘money drops’ (a way to funnel cash).

Walking in his neighbourhood one day, Bob comes across a wounded puppy that someone has tossed into a garbage can. As he takes the puppy out, Nadia (Noomi Rapace), the house’s owner (or renter) comes outside to confront him. Together, they decide to take care of the puppy and they become friends. That sure sounds like the beginning of a thriller to me! Murder and mayhem are obviously just around the corner!

Well, actually it turns out that the owner of the puppy is a sociopath named Eric Deeds, a man who boasts of killing a kid named Richie Whelan (also known as ‘Glory Days’), last seen alive in Cousin Marv’s bar. When Deeds comes looking for his puppy, things get tense. Although, things were already tense because a couple of masked men robbed Marv’s bar the day before. Actually, The Drop oozes tension (and dread) from the first shot to the last. That’s part of its weird style and magic. There’s a lot more I could say about the plot, but that would reduce the pleasure of the weirdness.

Hardy’s performance is extraordinary and is more than worth the cost of admission - yes, it’s that good. If Hardy’s greatness as an actor was ever in question, Locke and The Drop have ended the doubt. Gandolfini is also excellent in his final role. And Rapace is solid as the nervous Nadia. The cinematography is ‘unusual’ but perfect for this unusual film.

If you want to see a thriller that’s a few cuts above the average thriller coming out of Hollywood, look no further. But be warned: it’s a dark, disturbing and occasionally violent film. A solid ***+. My mug is up.

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Welcome

So these two brothers who love movies and like to write want to have an excuse to watch movies and write about them. As a bonus, though they're an ocean apart (ok - now only half a continent), they get to have an ongoing conversation. You're welcome to eavesdrop on this conversation, especially if you like to think about movies and other cultural offerings with some occasional theological and psychological nuances. And, of course, you're welcome to join in the conversation.